Re: [Bug-tar] tar "v7" format archives are created with directory entries

[Joerg Schilling]

Sergey Poznyakoff <address@hidden> wrote:

> I don't know what was the rationale for that change, but I suppose that
> it had something to do with the fact that Makefiles produced by Automake
> use the -o option to create what was called "v7 archives". Perhaps
> Paul can give some more insight.

Star (since 18 years) distincts between "tar" which is the old BSD TAR format 
and "v7" which is the very old initial TAR format from AT&T.

With the property structure driven implementation of star, it is simple to 
create define and implement a new archive variant in a few minutes.

                /* 
                 * Old BSD tar does no know about file types bejond "012" but 
                 * the USTAR basic format has been designed to be compatible 
                 * with the old tar format. 
                 * OLD UNIX V7 tar does not know anything but plain files and 
                 * hard links. Note that we never see H_TYPE(htype) == H_V7TAR 
                 * in extract mode. 
                 */ 
                if (H_TYPE(htype) == H_V7TAR) 
                        prsettypeflags("01", TF_VALIDTYPE); 
                else 
                        prsettypeflags("01234567", TF_VALIDTYPE); 

It would be a good idea if GNU tar does not try to create own names for archive 
types but simply use the existing list from star:

star H=help
Header types (default marked with '*'):
        v7tar   Old UNIX V7 tar format
        tar     Old BSD tar format
        star    Old star format from 1985
        gnutar  GNU tar format 1989 (violates POSIX)
        ustar   Standard POSIX.1-1988 tar format
*       xstar   Extended standard tar (star 1994)
        xustar  'xstar' format without tar signature
        exustar 'xustar' format - always x-header
        pax     Extended POSIX.1-2001 standard tar
        suntar  Sun's extended pre-POSIX.1-2001
        bin     cpio UNIX V7 binary format
        cpio    cpio POSIX.1-1988 format
        odc     cpio POSIX.1-1988 with SYSv compat
        asc     SYSvr4 cpio ascii expanded device #
        crc     'asc' format + CRC

Jörg

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